The most useful thing a recovered gun can tell an investigator is that another agency has seen one like it. The most worrying thing a sharing tool can do is show that to everyone by default. Every agency we talk to wants both: find the connection, and keep control of their own case.
Start from nothing
Sharing between two agencies in Fusillade is set up by agreement, one partner at a time. Without an agreement, a partner sees nothing. An agency that never shares still gets everything else Fusillade does for its own recoveries.
Share only what the partnership needs
Not every partnership calls for the same openness. A neighboring department working the same corridor may want to see each other's full records. A partner across the state may want only a note that a matching gun exists and who to call about it, with nothing that could expose an open case. Most partnerships fall somewhere between, and an agency can set a different level for each one.
Those settings are not permanent. When a case closes, a task force ends, or trust grows, the agency changes what it shares, and the change is recorded.
A match should end in a phone call
The point of a match between agencies is two investigators talking to each other, not one agency quietly reading another's case file. So the smallest useful kind of sharing is deliberately small: enough to know who to call, and nothing more. Many agencies start there and open up from it.
Knowing who looked
Lookups across agencies are logged. An agency that wants to know what a partner has seen of its recoveries can find out exactly, instead of taking it on trust. That record is often what lets an administrator agree to share in the first place.
If your agency is weighing a regional sharing arrangement and wants to see how this works, we are glad to walk your team through it.